I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a flow divider that promotes equal distribution between parallel trains and separation.
II. Description of the Related Art
Modern oil and gas production has increasingly relied on installations wherein the collection, separation, boosting, and transport of production fluids takes place. These process plants may comprise a wide range of equipment, such as the number of multi or single phase pumps and/or compressors, multi or single stage pumps or compressors, and/or other kinds of equipment that are arranged in parallel in order to transport and/or process the production fluids from the source to some remote location. This parallel configuration is referred to as parallel trains. Before the production fluids reach the parallel trains, the production fluids are collected into larger pipes that lead to the trains. Before the production fluids enter the boosting equipment, the flow of production fluids must be divided equally between the trains. If both pumps and compressors are used in parallel, the production fluid must typically be feed into separation equipment, heat exchangers etc. in order to separate the liquid phase and the gas phase. In this case the gas phase is fed into one or more compressors and the liquid phase is fed into one or more pumps, wherein the pressure of the gas and liquid phases are considerably increased before they are transported through pipelines to some remote location. Regardless if the separators are necessary or not, the flow of production fluids must be divided as evenly as possible before the flow reaches the boosting trains, in order to utilize the maximum rated power of the boosting trains and to ensure equal distribution of the inhibitors.
The conventional solution is to feed the collected production fluids into some sort of manifold, wherein the fluids are mixed and distributed into two or more parallel trains. However, this solution may result in an uneven and fluctuating distribution of the production fluids and possible inhibitors, and as a consequence the separation equipment, heat exchangers, pumps and especially compressors have to be dimensioned for sufficient capacity to deal with temporary fluctuations and peaks. This over-dimensioning of equipment results in increased costs and weight of the process plant, and by ensuring a more even and constant distribution of production fluids to the parallel trains would result in significant savings and improved distribution of inhibitors. Also, the violent mixing of the production fluid right before it enters the separation equipment results in longer dwell times in the separators and a need for larger separation equipment, these factors also add to the cost.